March 20, 2022

 

I WAS WRONG!

 

Sometimes it is very easy to say, “I was wrong” and sometimes those three words are the most difficult words to say in one’s whole life.
 
“I was wrong!”
 
Take Jephthal in the Book of Judges.  I always wish he copt out and told God, “I was wrong. I made a mistake when I made that dumb vow to you.”
 
Nope.
 
He had vowed to God to sacrifice the first creature that came out his front door when he got home – if he beat the Ammonites in battle. [Cf. Judges 11:29-40.]
 
He killed his daughter.
 
What a dumb move. What a dumb vow.  Why not say, “I was wrong” and move on.
 
How many people have taken vows in marriage or religious life or priesthood – for the wrong reason – and discover it was a dumb move. It’s self-destructive. It’s murder and suicide and others are involved.
 
“I was wrong!”
 
I can always hear God saying to Jephthah, “Wrong!”
 
And I hear God saying the same thing to those in knots – in dumb vows.
 
“I was wrong!”
 
And then there are those who admit they are wrong, but they don’t get moving  - they carry that wrong for the rest of their lives.
 
They need to see Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and have a spiritual catharsis in seeing here washing and washing and washing those hands after her terrible wrong.
 
“I was wrong!”
 
There I said it.

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022